The perennial nature of" Manual de Vogal sem Mestre" for Lourenço Marques' outskirts (Caniço), by Pancho Guedes

Abstract

Amâncio Moura Guedes is undoubtedly one of the most lauded architects for his work in Africa, particularly in Mozambique. Of Anglo-Saxon training and irreverent spirit, as witnessed by his architecture, he had strong associations with the Team Ten in 1960, becoming an architect whose works and projects were published in Europe, in the United States, and in South Africa, where he taught. He attended various events in the architectural world, among them the 1961 São Paulo Biennial. Works such as The laughing lion and the Aircraft house became especially well known. However, his vision of the city then called Lourenço Marques is almost unknown. He was a disconcerting critic of the existing colonial-based urban framework, which disregarded the spontaneous peri-urban settlements known as" Caniço", which today correspond to nearly two thirds of the city of Maputo. This 1963" manifesto" not only provides an ironic view of the city's future growth but is also a seminal and even timeless text. To some extent, it is a temporal reference for settlements similar to those found today in Luanda's" muceque" or even Rio de Janeiro's slums.